HDMI Audio - Blu-Ray

[TheMightyP]

I just bought a Philips BDP3000 blu-ray player. It's hooked up to an LCD TV via the HDMI cable. The problem I'm having is that on the 2 blu-ray disks I've watched so far, the disks are only encoded with the following sound: "DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1". This sound track is only output over the HDMI cable. My amp (aging Yamaha) doesn't decode HDMI audio (or have HDMI ports for that matter). So the only audio I can get is stereo on the TV . The Philips does have coaxial digital output, but if the blu-ray disk sound track isn't being output in that format, it doesn't help.

I have seen products such as this: http://www.octavainc.com/HDMI%20distribution%20amp_splitter%202%20port.html - but, I can't find out what that would do with that specific audio format.

I.e. does the splitter output Dolby Digital 5.1 that my amp needs??

Also, is the Philips perhaps outputting DTS over the coaxial digital as well, and I'm just not seeing it because my amp also doesn't support DTS?

Obviously the best solution for me is to upgrade my amp - but I'm trying to avoid that for now.

Any ideas?

 

[Gambit]

DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 should be outputted as standard DTS 5.1 over the coax output. AFAIK all bluray players should do the down conversion of DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD as they will only be outputted over hdmi (optical and coax outputs don't have enough bandwidth).

Also it is weird that your disks only have DTS-HD Master Audio as this is an optional codec in the blueray spec and not a mondatory one. Normally they at least have Dolby Digital. Have you gone through the menus on the disks to look for alternate sound tracks?

 

[wetkit]

Does your LCD TV have AV co-ax inputs and outputs?
If your TV does have the AV co-ax output, you might be able to get the sound back to your amp that way.
I have tried copying DVD's to VCR that way. The sound was there, but the screen on the VCR was blank - It is worth a try...

 

[ads]

Also, is the Philips perhaps outputting DTS over the coaxial digital as well, and I'm just not seeing it because my amp also doesn't support DTS?

Obviously the best solution for me is to upgrade my amp - but I'm trying to avoid that for now.

Any ideas?

You shouldn't need an HDMI to coaxial converter to get the sound. The BDP3000 outputs the digital sound on the coaxial port as well. Just check the settings in the manual to make sure that it's set up properly (Bitstream if you want the DTS output). It can also downmix to stereo (PCM) if you don't have any device that will play DTS. There's not much you can do to play a DTS track on an amp that doesn't support DTS at all.

DTS-HD Master Audio is a new, high quality version of DTS used on Blu-Ray. It should be backward-compatible with regular DTS 5.1, but again, you'll need something that can play DTS in the first place. The BDP3000 supports DTS, but the specs don't say anything specific about supporting DTS-HD MA as well, but apparently it should then just output normal DTS 5.1.

 

[TheMightyP]

DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 should be outputted as standard DTS 5.1 over the coax output

Yeah - thanks guys - from what you're saying it's plain to me that if my amp supported dts, I'd get the sound via the coaxial.

Also it is weird that your disks only have DTS-HD Master Audio

The disks I rented are:

Coraline
and
The Proposal

 

[RanzB]

No optical output/inputs either?

 

[TheMightyP]

No optical output/inputs either?

No optical output on the Philips BDP3000 - only coax. The amp has both optical and coax digital inputs - currently using the optical for my "old" dvd player.

 

[Gambit]

So you reckon your "aging Yamaha" amp doesn't do standard DTS either?

 

[TheMightyP]

So you reckon your "aging Yamaha" amp doesn't do standard DTS either?

Nope - Yamaha DSP-a595 - I'm pretty sure it has 5.1 separate inputs though - so now my thinking is to get a DTS decoder/preamp to just decode the DTS. I've found something on EBay for about R600.

Still looking for a better solution though.

 

[howardb]

You may have to use the coax output for the audio to the amp and HDMI to the LCD for the video... just until you can replace the amp - some experts say that the pure silver coax cables give better quality, but can't confirm this.

My Yamaha also has no HDMI inputs, so am running the video to the LCD via HDMI and the DTS audio to the amp via optical from my Philips DBP1600 (no coax output on this model and not in DTS-HD to the amp)

 

[TheMightyP]

You may have to use the coax output for the audio to the amp and HDMI to the LCD for the video

That's what I am doing - the problem is my amp doesn't support DTS.

When I started this thread, I simply assumed that there wasn't anything being sent down the coax digital line - but I don't think that anymore. The problem I have is more likely to be due to the fact that my amp doesn't support DTS.